GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 660, which features clock speeds of 980 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 960 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 660 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128192 (801%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be quite a bit (approximately 197%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52000 (197%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be much (about 256%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO ASUS 512		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16920 (256%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.